Some Conservatives Turned Off by Helping Environment

Mother Jones reports on a remarkable new study that shows that some conservatives are actually less likely to choose a product if they are told that it will use less energy and thus be better for the environment. Here’s how the study actually worked:

A study out today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined attitudes about energy efficiency in liberals and conservatives, and found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them. The researchers first quizzed participants on how much they value various benefits of energy efficiency, including reducing carbon emissions, reducing foreign oil dependence, and reducing how much consumers pay for energy; cutting emissions appealed to conservatives the least.

The study then presented participants with a real-world choice: With a fixed amount of money in their wallet, respondents had to “buy” either an old-school light bulb or an efficient compact florescent bulb (CFL), the same kind Bachmann railed against. Both bulbs were labeled with basic hard data on their energy use, but without a translation of that into climate pros and cons. When the bulbs cost the same, and even when the CFL cost more, conservatives and liberals were equally likely to buy the efficient bulb. But slap a message on the CFL’s packaging that says “Protect the Environment,” and “we saw a significant drop-off in more politically moderates and conservatives choosing that option,” said study author Dena Gromet, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business…

Gromet said she never expected the green message to motivate conservatives, but was surprised to find that it could in fact repel them from making a purchase even while they found other aspects, like saving cash on their power bills, attractive. The reason, she thinks, is that given the political polarization of the climate change debate, environmental activism is so frowned upon by those the right that they’ll do anything to keep themselves distanced from it.

“When we’re given an option where the choice is made to represent a value that we don’t identify with or that our ideological group doesn’t value,” she said, “this can turn the purchase into something undesirable. By making [the environment] part of the choice, even though they might see the economic benefit, they no longer want to put their money toward that option.”

This shouldn’t be a surprise. In 2011, the conservative blog Red State actually urged people to celebrate “earth hour,” when people all over the world were encouraged to turn their lights off, by turning more lights on. In 2009, Rush Limbaugh said he planned to make sure all his cars are driven more on Earth Day and that his plane takes a long trip for no reason too. And Glenn Beck said he wanted to hear from people who planned to cut down trees on Earth Day. The next year Beck announced that he would celebrate Earth Day by burning styrofoam in his back yard. The one thing conservatism clearly does not represent today is any desire to engage in conservation.

Even if you don’t believe that we should adopt a certain policy to clean up the environment and even if you think global warming is a giant hoax, it still can’t be a good thing to waste energy and cause more pollution. I mean, not to any minimally rational person. But this is where the right wing is today, utterly irrational and driven solely by a desire to distinguish themselves from their political enemies.

This is really a form of tribal nihilism. One party has become entirely about a posture, not a set of feasible policies. I can see no reason whatever that conservatism must mean destroying the environment – or refusing to do even small ameliorative things that can help…Snark is not a policy, although it may be a successful talk radio gimmick.

Spite, a core part of the conservative person’s personality. Every notice the similarities between conservatives and children? Selfishness, lack of concern (or awareness) of others, disregard for the future and the broader consequences of actions (especially their effects on others), and the list goes on.

slc1

I have just started converting to CFL bulbs and have observed that the 3 way versions don’t work very well. One of the 3 way bulbs stopped working altogether after 2 weeks. On the other hand, the 1 way bulbs so fare seem to be ok so far, at least the 40 watt replacement and 75 watt replacement. These were GE bulbs so maybe some other 3 way brand works better.

ethanol

Just playing devil’s advocate, but I’m not entirely convinced that this study has controlled for the perception among conservatives that “green” products just don’t work as well. Even if they are given all the stats on both, “green” advertising might say to a conservative “this product sucks, so this is the only way we could sell it” In their mind environmental problems are pretty much all made up, so it would be analogous to seeing a lightbulb which advertised that it could drive away ghosts. I would not buy such a lightbulb, not because I am pro-ghost, but because I am skeptical of the quality of products with advertisements clearly directed towards stupid people. Not that there aren’t numerous examples, in addition to the ones Ed gave, of conservatives harming the environment just for the fun of it, but in scientific study all plausible explanations for the data should be addressed.

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

Look, if God didn’t want us to use all those natural resources, He would’ve hidden them underground!

raven

This is really a form of tribal nihilism.

Same thing with their religion.

Fundie xianity is all about hate, lies, and hypocrisy. Hate for women, gays, atheists, nonxians, college students, and on and on. You name it, they will hate it. Besides the tribes of Others, they hate the modern world, the US government, sex, education, and science, the basis of 21st century civilization.

Lately, the main target is…the gays. It’s gay hate, 24/7/365, Seems like they would get bored and pick on some other group but they don’t.

That is a religion? “We hate a lot, especially the gays.”

There is nothing uplifting or positive in fundie xianity. They own the Dark Side of our society.

leftwingfox

You know, this could be an excellent money-making opportunity.

Liberty Lights!

Don’t go green, market in Red White and Blue! American flags and crying liberty eagles. Use less of that expensive hippy wind and solar energy! Reduce your household debt! Invest in your future! Designed in America by Americans (made in China, ’cause no-one cares).

http://www.rodlamkey.net reverendrodney

I changed to CFL light bulbs and my electricity bill dropped. But then PG&E installed “smart meters” and the bill skyrocketed.

That aside, my belief is that ultra-conservatives are simply meaner than “lefties”. It is they who wish to subjugate women, they who advocate torturing prisoners of war, capital punishment, no entitlements, and if something comes along that (heaven forfend) benefits the human race, they’re against it.

raven

Besides the tribes of Others, they hate the modern world, the US government, sex, education, and science, the basis of 21st century civilization.

Environmentalism, Earth Day, conservation, endangered species, the EPA and so on are bad words to right wing extremists and fundies.

According to their mythology, god gave us a nice planet to live on, and so we are going to trash it and destroy it. ASAP of course, because jesus is coming any minute to destroy the earth, so nothing we do to it really matters.

PS A local botanist searches for and finds patches of rare and endangered plants. Someone deliberately pulled up and killed one of a dozen or so patches left of one species. No one knows why. It could have been nihilistic vandalism or it could have been a Sarah Palin fan, killing endangered species for jesus.

llewelly

This is known as Rachel Carson Derangement Syndrome.

raven

This is really a form of tribal nihilism.

1. It’s also very stupid. Only idiots trash their home and the life support systems for the spaceship we are lving on.

2. One of the huge successes of Americans in my life time has been the EPA and environmental cleanup.

As a kid, the air was filled with smog. On hot summer days, the sky was orangy brown. A car parked for a day would pick up a film of oil and soot in LA.

The river near where I used to live was so polluted to be almost dead. You couldn’t swim in it and fish couldn’t live in it. That same river today is a popular recreation spot for swimmers, kayakers, and supports trout and salmon runs.

We managed to do a lot despite frequent claims of the corporations that all that would destroy the economy and bankrupt them.

ArtK

The attitude boils down to this: “If someone not of our tribe is for this, then we must be against it.” It’s the same reason that the Repubs admittedly voted against gun regulation simply because Obama was for it. The right has reduced itself to a bunch of pouty 3yo brats with a case of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Here’s what one web site says about ODD:

Symptoms of ODD may include:

* Throwing repeated temper tantrums

* Excessively arguing with adults

* Actively refusing to comply with requests and rules

* Deliberately trying to annoy or upset others, or being easily annoyed by others

* Blaming others for your mistakes

* Having frequent outbursts of anger and resentment

* Being spiteful and seeking revenge

* Swearing or using obscene language

* Saying mean and hateful things when upset

Sound familiar?

Akira MacKenzie

America’s rIght wing has pounded the same message on ecology over and over for 40 years: “Environmentalism is a Communist scam! They want to destroy the free market and drag us back to the stone age because they value a snail darter over a human. There are plenty of resources to of around, it’s just the pinko tree huggers in the government won’t let us get them!” Of course, that is putting there uninformed opinions mildly.

When you lambast and villify an group or an idea so vehemently for so long, should there be any surprise that the right dismisses even the basic environmental policies?

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

raven“As a kid, the air was filled with smog. On hot summer days, the sky was orangy brown. A car parked for a day would pick up a film of oil and soot in LA.”

Those weren’t smog and soot. Those were Freedom and Liberty. Why do you hate America?

“We managed to do a lot despite frequent claims of the corporations that all that would destroy the economy and bankrupt them.”

It did. Just look at what happened to the Cuyahoga River Fire Corporation!

http://polrant@blogspot.com democommie

@ Art K:

Is 9 for 9 a bad score?

I’ve had a lot of people tell their friends who are about to spend some period of time with me, “You’ll like democommie (not his real name, but a great deal easier to pronounce), he’s “odd” but quite entertaining.”. I had no idea!

http://polrant@blogspot.com democommie

“It did. Just look at what happened to the Cuyahoga River Fire Corporation!”

Never mind the damage done to Love Canal Hazmat Boat Tours.

kantalope

Midnight Chemical Dump Corp had to lay off their whole workforce, most of them were sick and dying, but still – why do you hate workers with no benefits?

postwaste

My father refuses to use CFL’s (among other energy saving devices). He actually removed the one he had in his house. Just threw it away. He believes that anything relating to energy saving is a scam perpetrated by the government to control us. I don’t know exactly how this is supposed to happen, but he is sure of it. Something about getting us used to government interference and convincing us there are shortages. Also pollution isn’t really a problem, your body can filter out all the bad stuff. Oil spills are beneficial to wildlife, and even if they aren’t they’re not as bad as the liberal media makes them out to be.

I do know he believes Jesus will be returning soon, probably in his lifetime, and god gave us this world to use for ourselves, and it would be a sin to waste any of the resources we have.

http://anexerciseinfutility.blogspot.com tommykey

Sometimes I think some of these wingnuts would cut off their own penises if they thought it would upset a liberal. Well, I for one would be very offended, so I guess they’re going to have to start looking for some clean, sharp blades.

This result doesn’t surprise me. My girlfriend and I had fights over using CFL bulbs. I think she finally relented just to shut me up.

@slc1:

I had heard that CFL 3-way bulbs didn’t work, but that was years ago. I had figured they had that problem fixed.

laurentweppe

I call this Marie-Antoinette 2.0:

Regardez-moi Manger de la Brioche

Michael Heath

On the other hand, some denialists have a very green footprint in their personal life while simultaneously attempting to obstruct sane energy policy by lying about the state of both climate science and climate policy. Anthony Watts is Exhibit A.

dan4

@5: “Fundie xtianity is all about hate…” No “hate” involved in using the pejorative “fundie” characterization, of course. “Hate for…college students…”. Huh? Some Christians actually have set up their own colleges (Bob Jones, Ora Roberts, Liberty), so I don’t know know where your “hate for college students” thing is coming form.

http://drx.typepad.com Dr X

We replaced bulbs at home and in my offices with CFLs at least 2 years ago. electric bills dropped a little. The part that has most pleased me is that we rarely need to replace light bulbs.

leni

Leftwingfox:

Don’t go green, market in Red White and Blue! American flags and crying liberty eagles. Use less of that expensive hippy wind and solar energy! Reduce your household debt! Invest in your future! Designed in America by Americans (made in China, ’cause no-one cares).

Ha! This reminds me of a skit by Key and Peele about Obama using reverse psychology on Republicans.

By the end of the skit Obama’s gotten them to agree to “big government”, sound environmental policies and gun control laws, but only because they can’t stop disagreeing with him- even after cutting out their own tongues, taping their mouths shut.

But yeah they’d totally buy the Liberty Lights with freedom eagles on them.

Though I have to say I’m not sure I’d buy a product with conservative slogans all over it, even if it was a better product. I’d be ok spending more money just to avoid looking at it.

Nemo

CFLs are like, so ten years ago. LEDs are where it’s at now.

steffp

@Dan4

(1) “Fundie” wasn’t used as a pejorative by Raven, but as a classification. Methinks thou dost protest too much…

(2) “College students…” Of course raven should have excluded the 10,000 young earthers at Liberty University, and the 4,000 each at Bob Jones and Oral Jones (Yes, it’s called Oral, not Ora…).

xnybre

urged people to celebrate “earth hour,” when people all over the world were encouraged to turn their lights off, by turning more lights on.

Well, earth hour is a rather silly idea. Large, sudden changes in the overall power usage is very bad for the electrical grid, so if enough people were to turn enough things off, using more power would be the good thing to do. Also, a lot of people will be using candles, thus emitting even more pollution.

“College students…” Of course raven should have excluded the 10,000 young earthers at Liberty University, and the 4,000 each at Bob Jones and Oral Jones (Yes, it’s called Oral, not Ora…).

College students are one of the reliable hates of the fundies. So much so that they have set up fake bible colleges and Fake Universities like Liberty to keep their kids away from them and to promote endogamy. They don’t want their kids marrying the wrong xians, atheists, or nonwhites. For once I agree with them. What would you do if your kids married fundies? It’s not common but it happens and it is tough on the parents.

Salon.com

Sunday, Mar 31, 2013 10:00 PM UTC

Why conservatives hate college

The right’s decades-long war on academia and “liberal professors” is about defining an elite “populists” can oppose

By Neil Gross

more

Excerpted from “Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?”

If you want to understand the origins of the 21st century campaign against the liberal professoriate, you have to understand why conservatives like William Buckley were engaged in a similar campaign in their day. Some of the anger that National Review authors directed at left-leaning academics reflected the same impulses and strategic calculations that sustained McCarthyism

Conservative isn’t quite the same as fundie but the overlap is so great it is close enough.

BTW, the liberal college professor is way overrated, almost a myth. There are a lot of nonliberal professors. IIRC, the Vietnam war was thought up and prosecuted by men from the Ivy Leagues. Some people follow the money and power and that is concentrated in the government. They are only liberal at cocktail parties.

Sep 17, 2012 – “We will never have the elite, smart people on our side,” he said, … Santorum, who also served as a senator from Pennsylvania, left the …

Satanorum claims rightly that “we will never have the elite, smart people on our side. And how do you get to be smart and elite. A few college degrees is the way the vast majority do it.

Satanorum has three degrees including one in law and makes a few million USD a year. He is a fundie leader, wannabe Dark Ages Pope, and a flaming hypocrite.

A lot of fundie cults actively discourage their kids from going to mainstream universities. Because they know they will probably lose them to the cult. The JW’s do this, and so do many others of the Oogedy Boogedy branch of xianity.

The real enemy of fundie-ism isn’t colleges, universities, or college students. It is the truth and reality itself.

dan4

@27: “Fundamentalist” is a classification. “Fundie” is a pejorative shorthand for “fundamentalist.”

chilidog99

Hete’s some irony for you. Thete is a federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition that is used to fund natural resources conservation programs.

They are raking in the dough with the guns and ammo buying spree going on.

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

dan4, actually “Fundie” is pejorative longhand for “F U”. True story.

slc1

Re cheesynougats @ #20

Apparently not.

Stacy

@tommykey:

Sometimes I think some of these wingnuts would cut off their own penises if they thought it would upset a liberal. Well, I for one would be very offended, so I guess they’re going to have to start looking for some clean, sharp blades.

You know, it might be fun to try the old reverse-psychology thing on them. Oh, not to get them to mutilate themselves, but to get them to do what we want.

Maybe for starters the Democrats in Congress should try it. Call it “The Br’e’r Rabbit Strategy.”

tbp1

I really wish I could say I found this surprising. But sadly, I don’t, not at all.

kantalope

Go Modus!

Have Fundies (short for fundament; long for FU) ever, ever done anything positive for progress or mankind?

http://cheapsignals.blogspot.com Gretchen

I’ve occasionally said that the vehemence and spite of pro-lifers makes me want to get pregnant simply to get an abortion.

But I didn’t actually mean it….

raven

NEW YORK (AP) — Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor and author, apologized on Saturday for saying economist John Maynard Keynes was less invested in the future because he was gay and had no children.

Ferguson said his remarks at an earlier conference were “as stupid as they were insensitive.”

Here is one of those so called liberal professors from Harvard. There are a lot more where he came from. Don’t forget both Ben Stein and George Bush were from Yale.

I always thought Niall Ferguson was an idiot. He is and now has proven himself a slime mold. Fuck you, Niall.

Alan Turing, a wartime hero and key developer of the modern programable digital computer was also gay. And was hounded to his death for it after service in WWII.

mikeyb

Sounds like the foot soldiers of the authoritarian right have totally bought into Rush Limbaugh’s ‘evironmentalist wacko” meme. Don’t want to be caught ever implying that everything you do is doesn’t go out of its way to destroy the environment. One more proof that step one to improving our democracy starts with thoroughly delegitimizing and utterly destroying and dismantling the right from top to bottom.

http://polrant@blogspot.com democommie

Fundies are fucking morons, hypocrites and liars*. Okay, that’s a bit of a generalization. 99.99999999999% make the rest look bad.

* and often, like, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY racist.

dan4

@29: “College students are one of the reliable hates of the fundies. So much that they set up fake bible colleges and Fake Universities like Liberty to keep their kids away from them…”

Ah, I see raven has a bit of a No True Scotsman thing going here. He knows the fact that the existence of fundamentalist Christian universities like Liberty and ORU damages his claim that “fundie” Christians “hate college students”…so s/he implies that students who attend those universities aren’t “real” college students. Brilliant.

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

I agree with Dan4. A student who takes a YEC biology course at Liberty is, in fact, a student. That doesn’t make Liberty a real university, however. That makes it a place offering Jesus-centric versions of underwater basket weaving.

I, for one, miss my time there. I majored in YEC physics, authoring a paper refuting the so-called “Theory” of Relativity (replacing it with my own Law of Absolutenessery), with a minor in Theography (which tracks all the places Jesus stepped on), eventually getting my D.I.A. (Doctor of Imaginary Arts), which opened the door to a long and fruitful career as a researcher at the ACRA defending a certain type of Christian from threats to their patriarchy, hegemony, and the like. In my spare time I enjoy long walks on the beach, and looking back to see if there are two sets of footprints there.

Stacy

Ah, I see raven has a bit of a No True Scotsman thing going here. He knows the fact that the existence of fundamentalist Christian universities like Liberty and ORU damages his claim that “fundie” Christians “hate college students”…so s/he implies that students who attend those universities aren’t “real” college students. Brilliant.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

In the first place, Liberty and ORU prove raven’s point. Students of those particular universities may be accepted by fundies, but the universities themselves are jokes. They’re university manques.

In the second place, what makes you assume raven is a man?

lancifer

Earth Hour is a joke. It is the environmental left’s equivalent of religious fasting, except they only do it for an hour. Meanwhile average global temperatures continue to flat line despite increasing atmospheric CO2.

I’m not a conservative or a believer but products labeled “green” are as ineffective at controlling the earth’s climate as products labeled “organic” are at preventing illness. I buy energy efficient products to save a few bucks on my utility bills but if the company claims to give money to WWF, The Sierra Club or EDF they aren’t getting any of mine.

dan4

@44:”…what makes you assume raven is a man?”

Good grief, Stacy, you don’t know that my use of “s/he” clearly shows that I do NOT know Raven’s gender?

dingojack

Modus (#43) – But do you like Piña Coladas and long walks in the rain?

Dingo

bad Jim

I’ve had good luck with 3-way CFL bulbs, but it often required a bit of work on the sockets. Unplug the lamp, clean the contacts, and bend them slightly upward. I think the problem is that you can’t screw in the CFL’s quite as tightly as incandescents.

Stacy

Ah, I see raven has a bit of a No True Scotsman thing going here. He knows the fact that the existence of fundamentalist Christian universities like Liberty and ORU damages his claim that “fundie” Christians “hate college students”…so s/he implies that students who attend those universities aren’t “real” college students. Brilliant.

Good grief, Stacy, you don’t know that my use of “s/he” clearly shows that I do NOT know Raven’s gender?

Sorry, my bad. The second time you referred to raven, you acknowledged that you didn’t know raven’s gender.

Still, Liberty U? HA ha.

dan4

@49: Yikes, you’re right. I did refer to raven as a “he” in the first reference. I understand where your confusion came from. My apologies.

mickll

@ ethanol

Except my LED lightglobe works better than a fluoro or an old fashioned light globe because it’s sturdier and brighter. It also costs less money in electricity bills.

ethanol

@51: I’m not saying that’s what I think, I’m just saying that perception would explain their aversion to environmentally labeled products without invoking an active antipathy towards the environment.

“Never appeal to a man’s “better nature.” He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.” – Heinlein

Plenty of conservative practice energy conservation as a means of having more green paper with pictures of dead presidents.

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

“In 2009, Rush Limbaugh said he planned to make sure all his cars are driven more on Earth Day and that his plane takes a long trip for no reason too. And Glenn Beck said he wanted to hear from people who planned to cut down trees on Earth Day. The next year Beck announced that he would celebrate Earth Day by burning styrofoam in his back yard. “

They really do just love being childish spoilt brattish arseholes and pissing people who actually try to be reasonable and look after things off don’t they?

Out to hurt everyone – even at least financially – themselves just to prove some stupid shit ignorant “point” to their equally scumbaggy friends.

PS A local botanist searches for and finds patches of rare and endangered plants. Someone deliberately pulled up and killed one of a dozen or so patches left of one species. No one knows why. It could have been nihilistic vandalism or it could have been a Sarah Palin fan, killing endangered species for jesus.

**RAGE!!!**

What a fucking douchy fucking thing for that sack of shit to do.

Why? For fucks sake really. Why? What possible benefit does that shit have?

I hope there are laws against that there and I hope that scumbag is caught and punished severely.

Turns out that whole crock there was pulled from some ignorant journos backside and has no basis in reality. Thought everyone knew that by now, no? Even if the Climate Change Deniers do still keep vomiting that stale canard up. (Shrug.)

Plus many other sites debunk that including theone linked by #53 Nick Gotts (formerly KG) and NASA’s which notes that 2010 was the hottest year on record and 2011-2 as the hottest La Nina cycle year plus of course the whole Arctic sea ice record minimum last northern hemisphere summer too.

I buy energy efficient products to save a few bucks on my utility bills but if the company claims to give money to WWF, The Sierra Club or EDF they aren’t getting any of mine.

Sir Lancelot’s comments are utterly predictable. Richard Dawkins comment about YEC Kurt Wise also applies to Sir Lancelot, “we have it on the authority of a man who teaches physics for a living that no evidence, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how all-embracing, no matter how devastatingly convincing, can ever make any difference”.

ArtK

@57 StevoR

Why? Because it gives some small scared person a feeling of power. “Look, I stuck it to The Man” or “I’m more important than some endangered species.” It’s the same reason people vandalize things. They’re trying to say to the universe “I exist.” As Stephen Crane pointed out, the universe doesn’t really care.

One of my favorite quotes from Desperado

You know, it’s easier to pull the trigger than play guitar. Easier to destroy than to create.

Akira MacKenzie

ArtK @ 60

…especially when there are piles of green, greasy, capitalist lucure to be made from destruction.

slc1

Re Bad Jim @ #48

I’ll have to try that, although it seems somewhat inexplicable why the 3 way bulbs should be affected but not the 1 way bulbs.

lancifer

Nick Gotts,

Your immediate appeal to personal slur is telling. Not to mention your link to John Cook’s pathetic website.

StevoR,

Perhaps you should take a look at the major temperature indexes rather than anonymously posted youtube videos. And I would gladly spend a buck or two more on a product that wasn’t funding WWF, The Sierra Club or EDF.

http://stochasticscientist.blogspot.com kathyorlinsky

The study pointed out that although conservatives have little interest in ‘protecting the environment’ or ‘reducing carbon emissions’, they do like the idea of increasing energy independence and of saving money (as long as it doesn’t also protect the environment). Personally, I think it’s good to know this information. I say, by all means let’s increase messaging on energy independence if that’s what floats their boats. Either way, we win.

savagemutt

The study pointed out that although conservatives have little interest in ‘protecting the environment’ or ‘reducing carbon emissions’, they do like the idea of increasing energy independence and of saving money (as long as it doesn’t also protect the environment). Personally, I think it’s good to know this information. I say, by all means let’s increase messaging on energy independence if that’s what floats their boats. Either way, we win.

But to them, “energy independence” translates as “drill, baby, drill!”

blf

I switched to CFLs in the late-1980s / early-1990s, when the price had dropped to the point to be sensible (around UK£10 or so for a 60W-equivalent). I still have, and use, all of those CFLs. None have failed and none are showing signs of failure.

I also obtained two around 2000CE. (I didn’t purchase either, both were give-aways related to energy-efficiency schemes.) Ignoring the one I broke, the other is now failing. My anecdotal conclusion: The quality has decreased as well as (I presume) the price.

I’ve now got two white-LEDs. One is Ok (but the wrong Wattage-equivalent (my mistake)), but the other isn’t working correctly. The price, around 10€ or so for a 40W-equivalent is more-or-less, it seems to me, at about the same point as CFLs were c.20 years ago: Now sensible.

What I do not have any idea of is the electricity-savings / reduced bills. I never paid that much attention and so don’t have any useful numbers…

slc1

Re Sir Lancelot @ #63

As Sir Lancelot claims, climate change is not happening and even if it is, it doesn’t mean squat. Known as the Racehorse Haynes defense.

One thing that is quite obvious is that CFL bulbs are a lot cooler then the equivalent incandescent bulbs that they replaced. The difference in heat output would seem to indicate that they are running considerably more efficiently then the incandescent predecessors. This would also mean that air conditioning bills will be lower in the summer.

http://stochasticscientist.blogspot.com kathyorlinsky

@ 65 savagemutt

Er… yes, that is a drawback.

lancifer

slc1,

As Sir Lancelot claims, climate change is not happening and even if it is, it doesn’t mean squat. Known as the Racehorse Haynes defense.

Uh, no, that’s not what I “claim”.

The climate is certainly changing, as it has at all time scales since the earth coalesced over four billion years ago. The fact is that the 0.8 degree Celsius increase in average global temperature over the last one hundred or so years is well within the observed range of natural variation.

Thus there is no reason to conclude that this change is “man made” or dangerous.